was the 4th ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' of

Odawara Domain file:Odawara 2006-02-21 c.jpg, 250px, Odawara Castle, Headquarters of the Odawara Domain was a Japanese Han (Japan), domain of the Edo period, located primarily in western Sagami Province (modern-day Kanagawa Prefecture). It was centered on Odawa ...

Sagami Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan located in what is today the central and western Kanagawa Prefecture.Louis-Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Kanagawa''" at . Sagami Province bordered the provinces of Izu Province, Izu ...

, (modern-day

Kanagawa Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...

) in mid-

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. His courtesy title was '' Kaga no Kami.''

Biography

Ōkubo Tadamasa was the sixth son of

Ōkubo Tadamasu was ''daimyō'' of Odawara Domain in Sagami Province, (modern-day Kanagawa Prefecture) in early Edo period Japan. Biography Ōkubo Tadamasu was a son of Ōkubo Tadatomo, daimyō of Odawara Domain. In 1681, he was appointed a '' Sōshaban'' (M ...

, the second daimyō of Odawara, and was born at the domain's residence in

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

. He became clan leader and daimyō of Odawara on the death of his father in 1713. At the time, 6,000 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. One koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about of rice. It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1,000 gō. One ''gō'' is the traditional volume of a single serving of rice (before co ...

'' of his revenues were transferred to his younger brother. Tadamasa faced the daunting task of attempting to reduce the massive debt incurred by his father to the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

due to the Great Genroku earthquake and the

Hōei eruption of Mount Fuji was a after Genroku and before Shōtoku''.'' This period spanned the years from March 1704 through April 1711. The reigning emperors were and . Etymology ''Hōei'' comes from the Old Book of Tang (). Change of era * 1704 : In reaction to ...

, and associated aftershocks, crop failures and floods. Although he encouraged the migration of artisans to Odawara and the opening of new rice lands, high taxation and increasingly severe inflation led to civil unrest in Odawara-juku. Tadamasa died of illness on November 20, 1732, at the domain's Edo residence, His grave is at the clan temple of Saisho-ji in

Setagaya is a special ward in the Tokyo Metropolis in Japan. It is also the name of a neighborhood and administrative district within the ward. Its official bird is the azure-winged magpie, its flower is the fringed orchid, and its tree is the '' Ze ...

, Tokyo. Tadamasa was married to an adopted daughter of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu, the senior advisor to ''

Shōgun , officially , was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, except during parts of the Kamak ...

Tokugawa Tsunayoshi was the fifth ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa dynasty of Japan. He was the younger brother of Tokugawa Ietsuna, as well as the son of Tokugawa Iemitsu, the grandson of Tokugawa Hidetada, and the great-grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu.Nussbaum, Louis- ...

References

* Papinot, Edmond. (1906) ''Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie du japon''. Tokyo: Librarie Sansaish
''Nobiliaire du japon'' 1906 (digitised 2003)
* ''The content of much of this article was derived from that of the corresponding article on Japanese Wikipedia.'' Fudai daimyo Tadamasa 1692 births 1732 deaths Nobility from Tokyo {{daimyo-stub